Proposed Russian ban dismays US adoption groups

In this June 2008 photo courtesy of the D'Jamoos family, Alexander D'Jamoos, center, poses with his adoptive parents, Michael and Helene D'Jamoos, and his younger brother, Marc, while on a family vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Alexander, who was born with no legs, grew up in a Russian orphanage and was adopted after he came to a Texas hospital to have a prosthesis attached that enabled him to walk. He is angry over legislation pending in Moscow that would ban adoptions of Russian children by Americans. (AP Photo/Family photo, Sasha D'jamoos)
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In this June 2008 photo courtesy of the D'Jamoos family, Alexander D'Jamoos, center, poses with his adoptive parents, Michael and Helene D'Jamoos, and his younger brother, Marc, while on a family vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Alexander, who was born with no legs, grew up in a Russian orphanage and was adopted after he came to a Texas hospital to have a prosthesis attached that enabled him to walk. He is angry over legislation pending in Moscow that would ban adoptions of Russian children by Americans. (AP Photo/Family photo, Sasha D'jamoos)
/ AP

Russian lawmakers attend a session of the lower house of the State Duma in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. The lower house of parliament takes a final vote on the measure Friday against the United States that would include banning adoption of Russian children by Americans. Some top government officials oppose it, but President Vladimir Putin hasn't tipped his hand on whether he'd sign it into law. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)— AP

Russian lawmakers attend a session of the lower house of the State Duma in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. The lower house of parliament takes a final vote on the measure Friday against the United States that would include banning adoption of Russian children by Americans. Some top government officials oppose it, but President Vladimir Putin hasn't tipped his hand on whether he'd sign it into law. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)
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General view of a plenary session of the State Duma, the Russian Parliament's lower house, in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. The lower house of parliament takes a final vote on the measure Friday against the United States that would include banning adoption of Russian children by Americans. Some top government officials oppose it, but President Vladimir Putin hasn't tipped his hand on whether he'd sign it into law. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)— AP

General view of a plenary session of the State Duma, the Russian Parliament's lower house, in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. The lower house of parliament takes a final vote on the measure Friday against the United States that would include banning adoption of Russian children by Americans. Some top government officials oppose it, but President Vladimir Putin hasn't tipped his hand on whether he'd sign it into law. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)
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FILE - In this April 12, 2012 file photo, 9-year-old Artyom Savelyev has tea and ice cream in a foster home in Tomilino, outside Moscow, Russia. When Savelyev was 7, his adoptive mother in the United States sent him back to Moscow with a one-way ticket and a note saying he had emotional problems and she could no longer care for him. This and some other high-profile incidents are partly partly behind legislation pending in Moscow that would ban adoptions of Russian children by Americans. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File)— AP

FILE - In this April 12, 2012 file photo, 9-year-old Artyom Savelyev has tea and ice cream in a foster home in Tomilino, outside Moscow, Russia. When Savelyev was 7, his adoptive mother in the United States sent him back to Moscow with a one-way ticket and a note saying he had emotional problems and she could no longer care for him. This and some other high-profile incidents are partly partly behind legislation pending in Moscow that would ban adoptions of Russian children by Americans. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File)
/ AP

NEW YORK 
U.S.-based advocates of international adoption, who have grown accustomed to discouraging news in recent years, have a new cause for dismay: a bill moving through Russia's parliament that would bar Americans from adopting Russian children.

The measure, which won overwhelming approval Friday in the lower house of parliament, is retaliation for a new U.S. law imposing sanctions on Russians deemed to be human rights violators.

"It's two countries duking it out," said Adam Pertman of the Donaldson Adoption Institute. "The adults are playing politics, and it's unfortunate to the extreme that children are being used as pawns."

The fate of the bill is uncertain. It needs approval by parliament's upper house and by President Vladimir Putin. Yet already it has added to an array of controversies and policy changes that have muddled the image of international adoption in the U.S.

Adoptions from abroad seemed to be on a perpetual upswing but peaked at 22,884 in 2004 and have declined steadily since then to 9,319 in 2011, because of factors ranging from corruption and fraud to nationalist pride.

In the case of Russia, UNICEF estimates it has more than 700,000 orphans and abandoned children. More than 60,000 of them have been adopted by Americans over the past 20 years, but the annual figure has plummeted from 5,862 in 2004 to 962 in 2011.

Chuck Johnson, CEO of the National Council for Adoption, said there is a faction of Russian politicians who have long-term antipathy toward foreign adoptions and have seized upon the pending bill as a vehicle for their cause.

"The Russian Duma is ignoring the many thousands of very happy children who have been adopted by loving U.S. families," Johnson said. "The bottom line is children should not fall victim to senseless politicking."

Among the adoption advocates who have been following the Moscow events closely is Alexander D'Jamoos, a 21-year-old sophomore at the University of Texas.

D'Jamoos, who was born without legs, grew up in one of the many Russian orphanages that accommodate children with disabilities. In 2006, at age 15, he was flown to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, where physicians fitted him with prosthesis to enable him to walk.

The Dallas couple who had agreed to host him temporarily, Helene and Michael D'Jamoos, became so fond of him that they proceeded to adopt him in 2007. Since then, the young man has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, became a talented skier, and is pursuing studies in government, international relations and Russian.

He has been following the progress of the proposed adoption ban in Russia with growing anger.

"It uses children as a tool for political demagoguery," he said. "It's extremely insensitive to children in Russia who've spent their whole lives in those orphanages, and insulting to the happy families here in the U.S. who have adopted Russian children."

Russia has tried to increase domestic adoptions over the past several years, but there also has been resentment about adoptions by Americans, fueled by a few high-profile incidents.